Critical Thoughts Retro

After four months of Arabic Classes, I finally know the Arabic for “United States of America” today:

Al-Wilayatu Al-Muhadatu Al-Amrikiyyah

Heh….terrer tak?

Society of Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, my arse. They should consider renaming themselves Society of Perpetuating Cruelty to Animals! Whenever I recall that story in The Malay Mail a few weeks’ back about how a queen (Merah? Minah? I don’t remember her name) and her kittens were “put to sleep” (read: massacre/genocide) after only four days in their care, it simply infuriates me. I am a cat lover and was a cat owner for eight wonderful months (before Nemo went missing from home), so I know how it is to love and be loved by your cat. The Prophet (P) loved cats too, so it goes without saying that loving a cat is also part of the Prophetic sunnah as well. That incident with Merah? Minah? and her kittens truly makes me view SPCA as a Genocidal Machine of Cats.

Dear cat owners, if for some reason you are unable to keep your cat (or her litter) for some reason or other and want to give him/her/them away, make sure you either give them to your family or relatives or friends, or you can leave them in a market-place or restaurant where there’s plenty of food. That’s a better fate then being sent to the Society of Perpetuating Cruelty to Animals. Make sure you do not donate even a ringgit to SPCA. They should be run down into bankruptcy. Ameen!

This may sound like I am playing the Devil’s Advocate, but seriously, I am not…I just want to give a fair and balanced view to both sides. But I was told yesterday by my cousin-in-law that this hulabaloo over the woman who was stripped in the lokap is nothing new, and is in fact part of standard police procedure in dealing with detainees.

Yesterday my parents and I went to the police flats in Bandar Tasik Selatan to visit my cousin-in-law and his family (yes, my cousin-in-law is a police detective attached to the Criminal Branch). The issue of the stripped lady in lockup eventually did came up between a discussion on the latest DVD movies and fixing up his computer. So my cousin-in-law properly explained the issue and said that what happened in the lockup is standard police procedure and can only be witnessed by a detainee of the same sex. He also pointed out that this issue “co-incidently” came up when a certain Minister is being confronted with the issue of 500,000 missing Chinese nationals, and he said that his fellow policemen are fuming over this issue being blown out of proportions. He certainly did not mince his words when referring to Pak Lah (err…I better not mention them, he may lose his job on my account).

And here’s another interesting thing: a certain son of a Minister/MP heavily involved in this issue (hint: the head of the Human Rights Caucus Group in Parliament) was involved in the beating up of a Malaysian who died in a disco in Sri Hartamas last early this year. The police were “involved” in the cover-up. And this same Minister is now making such a fuss over this Chinese national detainee in a Malaysian police lockup. Interesting….

Now that’s a food for thought, eh?

George Best (1946 - 2005). R.I.P.

Hmm….frankly I am not sure what to blog about, or even comment on the recent furore over that video of a Chinese lady stripping in a Malaysian police station. Didn’t really plan to blog about it, since most bloggers have already expressed their outrage and dismay over it, but when I saw a news scroller about it over CNN last night, something in me snapped. That video was available in .3gp format which I got from Mack’s blog yesterday (the link to the video is broken today, I think Mack has taken it offline).

Unlike my father, whose first reaction was “Biarlah!” when I confronted him with this horrifying news, I was shocked and appalled at this display of insensitivity. Worse of all, this “stripping” was witnessed by a tudung-clad policewoman (a Muslim) and in the video I’ve linked above, one can hear in the background the words of the Holy Qur’an in Arabic. I think this stripping is already bad enough, but worse, it gives a bad image of Islam and Muslims in Malaysia to the world.

Sickening, Shocking and Saddened. Those are the three “S” that I can summed up my feelings for now.